Proustian

When Leonard Lauder, the chairman emeritus of the Whitney, first saw the menu at Untitled, Danny Meyer’s new restaurant at the museum, he was less concerned with what was on it—pole-caught tuna salad on rye, mushroom-and-goat-cheese omelette, and other coffee-shop staples modified to meet contemporary tastes—than with what was missing. “I called him and I said, ‘Danny, how can you have all the other stuff on the menu—Reuben sandwiches, root beer—and not have a chocolate egg cream?’ ” Lauder said recently at the museum, over a lunch of an Untitled Burger with aged Cheddar and roasted tomatoes, served with artisanal pickles.

The kitchen had taken Lauder’s mandate to heart and developed an updated chocolate syrup to stand in for the Brooklyn classic, Fox’s U-Bet. He was back to sample its efforts, and had been joined by Marshall Rose, the real-estate developer and chairman emeritus of the New York Public Library. Rose, who ordered a grilled cheese sandwich, explained that his expertise dated from the early nineteen-fifties, when he worked as a soda jerk at Irving’s luncheonette, in Brighton Beach. “For my fiftieth birthday, my late wife re-created Coney Island in our living room, and I made chocolate egg creams for forty people,” he said. “Even if they didn’t want them, I served them.”

Rose was born in Brooklyn, and admitted to a partiality for the borough, but said that it didn’t spring from nostalgia. “There’s a new Brooklyn, where my stepdaughter hangs out,” he said. (For the past eleven years, Rose has been married to Candice Bergen, the actress.) “You go out on Saturday to Bedford Avenue, any of those places, and it’s just wonderful. We go there probably more than Manhattan.” Lauder had been to Brooklyn recently, too: his massage therapist had recommended Dizzy’s Diner, in Park Slope, and Lauder and Rose ventured there to sample the egg cream. “Marshall and I have been friends forever, and one of the things we take great pleasure in is doing the unusual—tasting things that are unusual, and having unusual experiences,” Lauder said. Fifteen-odd years ago, they went hiking in Catalonia. “We followed the trail up through the Pyrenees, and had an incredible experience,” Lauder said. “I never saw much of Marshall’s face, however, because he was in better shape than I. I saw mainly his behind. One of the reasons I was happy to do this today was so that I could look at his face.”

Both gentlemen lamented the passing of the soda fountain from New York City, and reminisced about lunching for twenty-five cents on a grilled cheese and an egg cream. There was talk of the two-cents plain, the root-beer float, the chocolate float. “How much are they charging here?” Rose asked, looking at the menu for the egg cream. “A nickel,” he said. “Five cents.”

“Five cents or five dollars?” Lauder asked.

“Can’t be five dollars,” Rose said.

“It is,” Lauder averred.

“Wow, that’s expensive,” Rose said. “For five dollars, I’ll go home and make one for you.”

Two egg creams per patron were brought: one with the commercial Fox’s syrup, and one with Meyer’s new concoction, created by the chef Chris Bradley. The Fox’s soda was paler and chalkier; the reimagined soda darker and denser. “We’re using an organic chocolate from San Francisco, called TCHO,” Richard Coraine, who is Meyer’s managing partner, explained. “It’s going to be a more leathery, berry sweetness. Whereas the Fox’s U-Bet is more heavy on the sugar.” (Actually, it’s corn syrup.) Coraine said that he had been fielding anxious messages from Meyer, who was out of town but wanted to be informed of the taste-test results.

Lauder instantly declared his preference for the Fox’s U-Bet. “It has a unique taste that’s hard to match,” he said. He said of the new version, “It’s too chocolaty. It’s too good.” But Rose was attracted to the newer iteration. “It’s like two different tastes, like wines,” he said, thoughtfully. “I’m on the margin.”

“You’re wrong,” Lauder said.

“I’ve been wrong before, but with taste it’s usually personal,” Rose said, affably.

As the men drained their glasses, Kevin Richer, the restaurant’s general manager, approached the table. “Should we put them both on the menu?” he asked.

“Definitely,” Lauder said. He gestured toward a diner with silver hair, reading a copy of the Times at his table.

“See that man over there?” Lauder went on. “If you gave him one with your chocolate syrup, he would say it’s not the real thing. Put both on the menu and, believe it or not, you will have people do tastings, like we did. And you will sell twice as many.” ♦

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